Hanukkah Mom emerges from Hanukkah Girl—the Jew among her gentile classmates, elected by default to share the Hanukkah story: The miracle of OVER a week’s worth of burning oil!
Armed with Hanukkah visuals and edibles, Mama Maccabee visits her children’s classrooms, enriching the Christmas-celebrating with a glimmer of the festival of lights:
Behold children, if you can even imagine the splendor of eight nights spinning a wooden top, lighting drippy candles and eating hash browns, while pressing your nose up to the outside of a snow globe encompassing a ToysRUs Nutcracker CandyLand nation.
Somehow, the children always seem interested and try in earnest not to pity We Christmas-deficient. Eight nights of presents vs. one night/morning of Christmas always gives Christian children pause, and those of us within the tribe allow them this one note of bitterness (though we know full-well our mesh bag of chocolate coins does not a laden-stocking make). Similarly, we savor our middle school classmates’ envy as they eye the tower of gifts at our Bar Mitzvah luncheons, shielding them from the knowledge that the booty consists of Star of David book ends, government bonds, and multiple complete works of William Shakespeare.
This week I played Hanukkah Mom for both boys’ classrooms. Before wooing them with marshmallow, pretzel, and chocolate-kiss dreidels (just like the ancient Israelites ate) I asked the Kindergartners what they knew about Hanukkah:
“Santa Claus comes down the chimney with presents!”
“My brother and I love to wrestle when we open up the bed.”
“Cars?”
I read a couple of books. I showed them pictures of the temple in Jerusalem. I tried not to look too uncomfortable when I accidentally read one of the God parts. Inspired by the storybook characters (all celebrating different religions! all on the same street!!) I took the freedom-of-religion slant a bit far–suddenly shouting out all of the holidays I could think of: Christmas! Hanukkah! Kwanzaa! Tet! Chinese New Year! Denali!
“Diwali” my Six corrected.
As I was leaving, the teacher asked the kids what they learned about Hanukkah:
“You light lights!”
“It lasts eight days!”
“The Jews saved their castle!”
I learned that Hanukkah Mom needs to go dust off that Bat Mitzvah encyclopedia set. D is for Diwali…
What’s up with the “open the bed” wrestling is what I want to know.
Happy Hanukkah!
Good job, Mama! And I do still feel a little bitter about the bat mitzvah thing and I’m 43. Of course I was also jealous of my Catholic neighbors who got $$$$ for first communion. Being a protestant is so dull.
There is no way to compete with Hanukkah. Or Easter. I remember one year I so wanted the Easter Bunny to visit our house. I left a basket out just in case. My mother filled it with Matzoh. Yeah. That sucked.
Ah yes, be jealous of all those bar mitzvah gifts you fools! For it didn’t take months and months and hours of Sunday school and Hebrew to be lucky enough for a $10 savings bond from Aunt Gerta.
Did I mention that my Super Jew sister came up from Chicago last weekend with a GIANT Menorah on the roof of her mini van? Tell that to the kids next time.
HILARIOUS!!!
Covering my mouth in good laughter. Oh. Oh. OH.
Denali.
You SUV covetous mom.
Or? Freudian slip of the lip dreams of naked climbing.
Either way.
HILARIOUS.
STAR OF DAVID BOOK ENDS? Let me thank you from the bottom of my heart for the service you’ve just rendered this WASP. I can rip the lid off the story for my green-eyed “we only get a confirmation service? Not even a party?” kids.
And happy Denali, or Sporty Sitka, to you and yours.
Just blame it on exhaustion. Loudly. Everything. At all times.
What the heck is “Tet”? Oh, never mind. Happy Hanukkah, dearest.
Could you come read those books to me and my family? I had to look up Diwali. sigh.
That cracks me up. I think it’s excellent that you teach kids about Hanukkah though – I wish someone had taught me when I was a kid. It was so mysterious. I was quite sheltered though, until I moved to NYC. 😉